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Marc Baril
Marc Baril is a Canadian video game composer and musician. He has composed music for over 20 titles. He is best known for his compositions for the Crash Bandicoot franchise, The Simpsons: Hit & Run, The Simpsons: Road Rage, and Scarface: The World Is Yours. Biography Early life Baril was born and raised in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. His first instrument was a second-hand electric guitar, bought with savings from his paper route. His first band, The Spitfires, practiced in a laundry room where the washer and dryer were part of their rhythm section. As a young adult, he traveled around the world for 5 years, and after a trip to Australia and South Asia that left him penniless, he landed in Vancouver in 1989 and followed a passion to study music. He was self-taught up until the time he obtained a diploma from the Vancouver Community College in Jazz guitar and Composition. He then pursued and received a bachelor's degree from the School of Music of the University of British Columbia in 1996. Career In 1993, Baril met a sound programmer from the then-small company Radical Entertainment during a jam session with a group of people and took up the sound programmer's offer to make music for a video game. Baril was contracted to compose the music for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game Speed Racer in My Most Dangerous Adventures. The results were so satisfactory that Baril was offered a full-time job, becoming the first audio content creator hired at Radical Entertainment. In 2007 and 2008, Baril was commissioned by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. His music was performed by several local artists and ensembles and he recorded his music with full orchestras at 20th Century Fox's Newman stage in Los Angeles and at the Mosfilm Studios in Moscow. In July 2008, he was one of the twelve participants selected among hundreds of emerging composers worldwide to attend the exclusive and prestigious month-long ASCAP Television & Film Scoring Workshop with Richard Bellis held in Los Angeles. There, he had the opportunity to meet and chat with top Hollywood composers Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard and John Debney. Baril became a freelance composer in 2009 after working under Radical Entertainment for 15 years. Musical style and influences Baril is known for writing catchy melodies as well as powerful and moving themes. Although he has written and produced many electronic scores for games, he is equally comfortable and proficient in writing for orchestra in a more cinematic style. Discography Video games *''Al Unser Jr.'s Road to the Top'' (1994) *''Beavis and Butt-head'' (Genesis version) (1994) *''Power Piggs of the Dark Age'' (1994) *''Speed Racer in My Most Dangerous Adventures'' (1994) *''Independence Day'' (1997) *''Dark Summit'' (2001) *''The Simpsons: Road Rage'' (2001) *''Monsters, Inc. Scream Arena'' (2002) *''The Simpsons: Hit & Run'' (2003) – with Allan Levy and Jeff Tymoschuk *''Crash Tag Team Racing'' (2005) – with Spiralmouth and Michael Neilson *''Scarface: The World Is Yours'' (2006) *''Crash of the Titans'' (2007) *''Crash: Mind over Mutant'' (2008) *''Prototype'' (2009) – with Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco *''ModNation Racers'' (2010) *''Swarm'' (2011) Film *''Seeds'' (2009) *''Battle of the Bulbs'' (2010) - with Hal Beckett *''Soufflé au Chocolat'' (2011) *''The Wishing Tree'' (2012) - with Hal Beckett *''After All These Years'' (2013) - with Hal Beckett *''Blind Detective'' (2013) - with Hal Beckett *''Hats Off to Christmas!'' (2013) *''Signed, Sealed, Delivered'' (2013) *''Happy Face Killer'' (2014) References External links *Marc Baril's official website Category:Canadian composers Category:Freelance musicians Category:French Quebecers Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Quebec City Category:University of British Columbia alumni Category:Video game composers Category:Year of birth missing (living people)